【Empirical Seminar】Health IT Diffusion and Physician Labor Supply
2025/06/12
研討會日期 : 2025-06-12
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Jason Huh
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Tzu-Ting Yang
演講者簡介 : Professor Jason Huh received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017. He is an Associate Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is currently on sabbatical at Yonsei University (until June 2025). His research interests are Health Economics, Public Economics, and Applied Microeconomics.
演講摘要 : This paper examines how the diffusion of advanced health information technology (HIT) affects the aggregate supply of hospital-based (HB) physicians, who deliver direct patient care under hospital contracts. Leveraging sharp increases in county-level HIT adoption rates driven by federal incentives, we compare physician supply per 100k population in counties with rapid diffusion (treatment group) to those with slower or no uptake during our sample period (control group). Using an event-study framework, we find that HIT diffusion led to a 10.3% increase in HB physician rate in treated counties relative to control counties, and medical and surgical specialties account for most of the increase. This growth is further concentrated among early-career physicians and in physician shortage areas. Mechanism tests suggest that physicians benefit financially from practicing in treated counties, with higher Medicare reimbursement, more Medicare patients, and increases in hospital profits. Counties with moderate pre-period surgical volumes see the largest increases in physician supply and outpatient surgeries, suggesting greater capacity for demand expansion post-treatment. Various robustness checks support the validity of our results. Our findings suggest that strategic HIT investments can attract physicians, expand care capacity, and reduce geographic disparities in access to health care.
